Where I am

I decided this was going to be the year I finally move out. I moved back home to New York in the summer of 2004, and that, amazingly, was almost eight years ago now. Of course, now I’m faced with the very real possibility that I don’t earn enough yearly to buy a place of my own, at least not anyplace nice, in New York. I’m looking at down payments I quite possibly can’t afford on mortgages I quite possibly won’t get, which run for decades longer than I quite possibly want to live there, and that’s even before property taxes and interest rates and monthly expenses. But still, I got in touch with a realtor in Queens a few days ago, and I’ve said I’ll try to call her tomorrow, even though that might prove difficult at work.

This was so much easier when I was just renting an apartment, and when I was dealing with central Pennsylvanian prices.

Beyond that, and all the talk on Twitter and elsewhere about SOPA and PIPA, it was a pretty ordinary day.

Monday various

Wednesday various

Wednesday various

  • Mike Daisey remembers Steve Jobs:

    Mr. Jobs’s magic has its costs. We can admire the design perfection and business acumen while acknowledging the truth: with Apple’s immense resources at his command he could have revolutionized the industry to make devices more humanely and more openly, and chose not to. If we view him unsparingly, without nostalgia, we would see a great man whose genius in design, showmanship and stewardship of the tech world will not be seen again in our lifetime. We would also see a man who in the end failed to “think different,” in the deepest way, about the human needs of both his users and his workers.

  • Actress sues IMDb for revealing that she’s totally old and gross. It’s an interesting case, although I don’t think IMDB has a responsibility to lie in order to combat Hollywood’s unfortunate age- and sexism.
  • Mysterious paper sculptures [via]
  • I’m sure by now you’ve heard this, but it’s still pretty remarkable: Online Gamers Make Discovery in HIV Battle
  • And finally, learning the wrong lesson from 127 Hours.